We are the subsect
by dirao
Summary: The only way he found to make sense of their story and his life, was to write. The only way she could make sense of the world was to read. Words are weapons, words are shields. We are the subsect. Lit futurefic. NEW - CHAPTER 5 IS UP! Sorry for the wait..
1. The Reader's Corner

**Title:** We are the subsect

**Rating:** M

**Synopsis:** The only way he found to make sense of their story and his life, was to write. The only way she could make sense of the world was to read. Words are weapons, words are shields. We are the subsect.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE and Disclaimer:** I will now commit the crime of admitting I have no idea where the heck this is going. Please know that as we embark on the crazy ride of where this fic will lead us. I will not be posting as often as I wish, but you tell me what you think…

Excerpts _from The Subsect_ were born in my mind, product of too much rereading of Kerouac and Sallinger (no such animal!) and can be read in Italics… ah, you're too smart for me to be spelling this out.

Jess, Rory, and everyone from Gilmore Girls, I borrowed. Please don't sue. I own paperbacks. You do the math. On with it.

**CHAPTER 1: The Reader's Corner.**

_We are the subsect._

_We are the ones you ignored._

_We are the ones you thought you would never have to fight against._

_We are here._

_We roam your streets, looking to pick fights._

_We are young._

_We are here._

_You must face us._

_You must see us._

_We are bruised._

_We are spitting in your faces._

_We are an affront to all you believe in._

_We are blowing your minds._

_We are in love._

_We are the subsect._

- - - - - - - - - - - -

It hadn't been an instant hit. It had just sort of… grown.

A kid had told another. College aged kids and high school kids.

It had rung a bell. It rang true, the reviewers had said.

Slowly, it built steam and it started getting attention online. Then in regular media.

He found himself having to do these stupid interviews. A journalist would ask, what inspired you to write this?

And he would invariably answer: "If I were able to sum it up in four or five sentences, why would I have written this book?"

The teenage crowd loved him. Truncheon started getting hate mail from parents, which made Chris and Matt terribly proud.

None of this bothered Jess Mariano, who was starting to find the title of author uncomfortable. It was good that he refused local TV interviews. He stuck to radio. That way, in the street, people would not say a thing. Matt and Christ, they enjoyed being the publishers of the mysterious hated Philly author who gave three radio interviews and riled up the young.

None of this shook Jess. None of this changed him. It had been almost two years since he'd published _The Subsect_, and the buzz was finally settling.

He still wore Chuck Taylor's, his beat up jacket was still beat up. He still drove the same god-awful car. He still bought the paper at noon in the same corner shop three blocks away from Truncheon, just so he could get away for lunch. He'd just say, _I have to get the paper_. And then he could go missing for one or two hours.

The front page of the paper was, of course, as politically minded as usual, but by noon this mattered very little, if at all. He'd read all the hard news online anyway.

The coverage of the campaign extended into the back pages of the first section. He eluded it, skipping over instead to the Reader's Corner.

It was a relatively new section, small and a bit hidden in between the hard news of the metro section. It had started maybe three or four months ago. The style of it was fresh and the reviewer had good taste in books.

The section would feature three books. Old, which was a shout out to the classics; New, a review of the recently published; and Discovering Philly, where the reviewer would give an opinion of a book a local reader suggested.

He'd been secretly hoping to find _The Subsect_ there. Silently, he'd grown to respect the reviews of the Reader's Corner because they were not at all subservient. They were clear, concise, with a hint of poetic and a good measure of constructive criticism. And although he hated to admit it, he wanted to read what the reviewer thought of _The Subsect_.

It wasn't some narcissistic need for approval. It was more of a need of honest feedback. The response he'd been getting from the teen crowd was basically emotional, and he respected that. But there was something inside him that needed, for the first time, a critic's approval, an academic approval, if you will. He'd had it, once, but that time was long past and he would not let an interviewer dig it back up.

Once again, as he skimmed over the section, his book was not mentioned. He shrugged and sunk his teeth into the reviews, which he enjoyed anyway. Then he closed the paper, ordered a coffee to go, and walked back to Truncheon.

- - - - - - - - - - -

She stared at the book on her desk.

_The Subsect._

It was an old copy, the copy he'd given her two years ago, with writing on the margins, his and her own.

Rory Gilmore, the Reader's Corner critic, faced a conundrum.

When her first column had gone out, she had asked readers to point her towards books they had enjoyed or hated and she would review the ones most recommended. It was what she called a Treasure Hunt. People would tell her about their treasured reads, and she would, in turn, learn about books she might not have heard of before.

The problem began with the first stack of letters.

Sixty-three percent: the percentage of readers under the age of 35.

Fifty-six percent: the percentage of readers under the age of 35 who had recommended _The Subsect_ in that first stack of letters.

Thirty-three percent: the percentage of readers that had recommended one of the books mentioned in _The Subsect_.

As she stared at the book on her desk, the problem faded in and out of focus, intermittently replaced by the deep sense of pride at what Jess Mariano had accomplished.

He had gotten young people in Philadelphia to read again.

It was not quite the phenomenon of a Harry Potter. It was more of a creeping, word-of-mouth kind of triumph. Kids read it, passed copies from one to another, teenagers quoted it online, searched the net for the literature it referenced, and got reading. The parents hated the foul language, a couple of PTA committees in lower Pennsylvania had managed to keep the library from buying a copy. So kids would share copies bought on the sly.

The best way to get someone to read a book is to say it is forbidden.

All the while, Jess kept a low media profile.

And Rory reread the novel, once, twice, thirteen hundred times.

Every new stack of letters carried the same request. To talk about _The Subsect_. The parents asked her to condemn it, the college students asked her to praise it.

Unwillingly, Jess Mariano's characters had become heroes to a generation of Pennsylvania teenagers and young adults.

She had avoided it long enough. Two months of weekly columns, eight issues gone to print.

It had been easier to work the campaign trail. There had been no chance of bumping in to him, because she'd had no time. She had breezed through Pennsylvania on the first leg of the trail. But the second time around the city called to her, a job opening called to her.

And so she stayed in Philadelphia.

She had avoided him for two months, mapping trails that would take her as far from Truncheon as humanly possible. She bought her books online. She went to bed early. She brewed coffee at home.

But now, it was time to face the music.

She sighed as she ran her fingers over her old copy. She slipped it into her purse, along with the brand new one that had arrived in the mail inside a small manila envelope.

The envelope read, in block lettering: Truncheon. For your consideration.

And then, in his familiar chickenscratch. "Don't print it. Just tell me what you think."

Followed by his email address.

Her blood had stopped circulating, no oxygen had gone to her brain. She'd died for a fraction of a second.

But then it hit her.

He didn't know.

She was just another critic. Another reviewer.

She was nothing special.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_She was nothing special._

_She had blue eyes, yes, but they were nothing special._

_Neither was her reddish-brown hair, or the way she could speak without taking a breath._

_She was nothing special._

_So she would take the cigarette from my mouth and make it disappear beneath the heel of her shoe. So what? It wasn't magic._

_She was nothing special._

_So what if I could play connect-the-dots on her freckles? So what if my stomach bottomed out when I saw her?_

_She was nothing special._

_I had to believe that._

_Because I was nothing special, and if she was nothing special, then maybe we'd have a shot._

_But she grew taller than I could ever grow, a pine tree, a forest._

_And under her shade, all that I could ever be was moss._

_- - - - - - - - - - -_

It had been a whim.

It had been a stupid stupid stupid thing to do.

Chris would be upset. Matt would be angry. Why was he, Jess Mariano, published writer, almost begging for a review.

There was just something he needed.

A kind word. A foul word.

A true word.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Rory's pencil had managed to burrow down to the next page, leaving a tiny circular hole on the page she was supposed to be writing on.

She still hadn't decided exactly what she wanted to write.

Did she want to write a review? Or an apology?

Was it even ethical for her to review his novel?

Should she tell him? Should she ask him?

- - - - - - - - -

_Dave and I pace the supermarket exit. Staying on the sidewalk, we hit up strangers for quarters. _

_He's faster, charming. He has a guitar and he brings it by some days. He gets a couple of singles, lucky bastard._

_If I'm in a good mood, I'll sing a couple of Dylan. Sometimes I do Robert Frost, sometimes I do Allen Ginsberg. _

_Dave shakes his head and does little intros with a guitar pick he calls lucky cause he found it on a clean sidewalk, no gum stuck to it._

_Dave still believes in luck._

_The town hates us because we give it a non-suburban feel. That's alright, we don't like it here anyway. We're on our way, east to New York to hit up strangers for something bigger than change, then upwards to Alaska. _

_Because, why the hell not?_

_We want to see what it's like when there's nowhere to go but down._

_Dave has lax morals: he plays church on Sundays. I have lax morals: I steal from the collection basket._

_We eat and sleep where we can, the car windows rolled up and newspapers to keep us warm. _

_This is the life of the high-school dropout._

_Not as fucking glamorous as it sounds._

_Still._

_Beats pronoun worksheets._

_- - - - - - - - - - - _

_She volunteers at the soup kitchen because she can. That means she doesn't need the soup for herself, but she'll have some anyway._

_She bites her fingernails._

_She's hungry for something._

_She sits across from me once, twice, before actually saying what she means._

_She says, "I saw you."_

"_Seeing me right now."_

"_At church. Taking that money. There's one less bowl of soup because of you."_

"_Don't eat then."_

_She wants to grin but doesn't. She tells me her name._

_I tell her mine._

_I won't tell you her name._

_I'll tell you mine._

_I am Joshua._

_This is not Canaan._

_The promised land is further north, where winter has never met a spring it didn't like._

_I am no leader of people._

_She furiously throws her spoon at my left shoulder._

_Dave strums on a nearby table, looking to score… whatever._

_Dave, he's looking for his own promised land in this slumbering town. _

_- - - - - - - - - - _

Rory hardly breathed as she typed.

It wasn't that it was hard to review his book fairly.

It was that she couldn't keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks when she wrote about his words. She had started writing the review at the office, but couldn't.

At home, what she now called home, two couches and a dusty TV, there she could cry.

How could she not cry?

- - - - - - - - - -

_She eats only soup, I realize, and she's disappearing._

_She leads me to her bedroom then pushes me away._

_I know this for a lie._

_Here's the truth:_

_I eat nothing but soup. I am wasting away._

_I lead her to my car. I say nothing._

_She says nothing._

_We push each other away, we push our clothes out of the way, it is not so cold. Dave bangs on the fogged up windows that it is that cold, taps the pick on the hood as the car moves a little._

_She bites my jacket to keep quiet._

_I want to tell her that I will keep her warm._

_But I know this for a lie._

_I help her get dressed, she looks away. _

_Dave's driving tonight._

_Away from the miserable town with the soup kitchen with the girl who is not special who I have not held millions of conversations with over hot soup with pepper. _

_I think we were in love._

_We go away, and leave the town be. We allow peace to return as we hightail it. _

_We are the subsect._

**TBC…**

**Author's note NUMERO DOS: So there you have it. Now you know what I mean when I say I have no clue where I'm going to go with this, exactly. I know, hooplah of a coincidence that Rory writes a column Jess likes. Don't kick my ass just yet. How about we stick with it?**

**Tell me what you think!**

**di**


	2. Running

**Disclaimer:** Gosh, still not mine.

**Author's note: **Thank you so much for your great, humbling reviews. I'm sorry for taking such a long time between updates. But I am writing, and I refuse to abandon this or any of my stories. Hopefully you'll decide to stick with it as well.

**CHAPTER 2 - Running**

Writing _The Subsect_ had represented the hardest year in his life.

He'd bruised his fingers holding leaky blue pens. His hands had shaken as he put out cigarettes next to his typewriter.

He'd finally produced something he thought she would be proud of.

And she had been. Her smile had widened and she had devoured the book, cover to cover.

But it hadn't been enough.

They'd broken each other's hearts in ways no fiction could mend.

So he had walked away, and then she had.

It was what it was.

And what it was, was this: past tense.

But it really wasn't…

One doesn't write about the girl in present tense if one is over her, Chris had wisely pointed out.

That conversation had ended in a fist-fight, and it was the last mention Chris or Matt had made of the mystery girl in the acknowledgments.

Yes, writing _The Subsect_ had represented the hardest year in Jess Mariano's life.

And it had marked the beginning of the silent loneliness of lunch-hour newspapers and empty apartments.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Anonymity. Rory had craved it. Stars Hollow had always had a first and last name for her, she was never one to get lost in the crowd. But here, in Philadelphia, no one knew her.

She had asked for anonymity, because she hadn't wanted Jess Mariano to know it was her column in the paper, to know it was his town she was invading. The editor had gladly granted her request, enjoying the thought of adding mystery to the column.

She still wrote for a couple of hard news outlets, freelance, using her own name. Usually, she never wrote for the same paper or magazine twice. Usually, she picked media based in cities as far away from Philly as she could get.

She wanted him to think she was off to see the world.

But in reality, she just e-mailed.

Denial. It ain't just a river in Egypt.

In truth, she waited for him to run into her outside the paper, or in her corner store.

Why else had she moved here?

She had traveled so many miles just to end up back in the place where she'd lied to him the most.

- - - - - - - - -

_I cannot help writing unsigned postcards to her. In them, I warn her. _

_I tell her to run. Because if she doesn't, she'll have to stay… forever._

_I tell her made-up stories about our travels._

_I send each from a different town, because I refuse to wait for unknown recipient notices._

_I send them each from a different town, because I can't face the idea of her not writing back._

_Dave and I, we move at the speed of light._

_Dave and I, we bum around, all limbs and hair, and the messes we've made trail not so far behind._

_Dave and I, we hardly sleep, we're driven by inertia alone._

_Once you start moving, it's so fucking hard to just stop._

_- - - - - - - - - _

Jess had a routine worked out.

It included calling Luke, but not asking about Rory.

It included calling Lily in California, avoiding all subjects pertaining to his father or his love life.

It included checking up on Liz and hearing Doula's first words over the phone and maybe, once in every blue moon, dropping in for a visit, stealthily, without a soul in Stars Hollow knowing.

His visits were quick because he knew if he had enough time to stay he would, and if he stayed he'd go to her house and knock on her window, the window of the house she no longer lived in.

In his routine calls to Luke, he always failed to ask about her, but that did not mean that he had lost track of her.

She wrote for papers and magazines all over the country.

Part of his routine included imagining her on planes and trains, cars she drives, bullets she dodges. He read as she wrote about everything under the sun, nothing too personal, no real town profiles. She moved around a lot, Jess imagined, and it prevented her from getting to know the communities she wrote about. She would often track and profile cybercommunities.

He had done his best to never visit Stars Hollow for too long, and he never visited on holidays. He was certain that if he were to stay and see her, he would stop breathing.

He'd had to run from Stars Hollow.

Because if he hadn't, he might have just stayed... forever.

_- - - - - - - - - _

_Dave and I part ways somewhere between Montreal and Anchorage. No matter how hard he tries to find it, his promised land keeps slipping further away. He pawns his guitar and looks at me sheepishly. I drop him off at the nearest Y. He leaves his lucky pick on the dashboard._

_When I meet the fork on the road, I hesitate._

- - - - - - - - -

_The Canadian landscape is covered in snow, and I know there is no way for the road to get me to where I'm going._

_There is no truth to the Great American Roadtrip, at least not when it's my car I'm driving, with no chains and all the roads three inches deep in snow._

_Anchorage is a dream, and I don't do dreams._

_I retrace my steps, retrace the roads, retrace._

_I end up at the same sleepy old town._

_I was supposed to run._

_I have crawled back._

_The soup kitchen is closed._

_Hicksville, USA, eight o'clock at night: everything is closed._

_I walk the town, tracing squares around the tiny blocks, around the town square. All shop windows the same._

_  
All except one._

_I see postcards on the bookstore window, up and down, forming rows and columns and it all seems too perfect._

_I throw gravel at the window above the bookstore._

_And I wait._

- - - - - - - - - - -

There was optimism in _The Subsect_ that Rory had not expected from Jess.

Of course, it was a tragic book about loss and friendships scattered on the road, it was a book about leaving and coming back and leaving and coming back… But the fact that it was written in present tense had always felt like a curious oddity to Rory.

It was almost as if it was Jess's way of saying: This is still happening. We can still do better than this. We can be perfect this time. Or this time. Or this time.

She decided this would be the place to start a review.

She decided.

As she set pencil to paper, she came across one clear thought.

This was, perhaps, her first real adult decision since saying no to Logan's marriage proposal.

This was it.

And her pencil furiously covered the paper with words.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Words. Words had been his weapon. He had used them to write an ending for Joshua, for the girl-with-no-name, for Dave the guitar player, for the Alaskan man in Chapter 1. He had used them to convince himself that everything would be fine once he wrote those two simple words.

But he hadn't been able to.

At the last moment, the night before the book was to go to print, he had Matt change the end.

He removed those two words. That oh-so-final The end.

He replaced them with the phrase "fork in the road".

These days, he never faced forks in the road anymore. He took no roads. He walked to and from work. He tied himself down to a routine.

And now, words, the weapon of choice, had decided to leave him.

His routine included sitting in front of his computer – which he now had – and staring at the blank screen for two full hours.

His fingers were devoid of ink.

Every night he would resign himself to becoming just the guy at the bookstore.

- - - - - - - - - - -

_There's no answer from the apartment above the bookstore. _

_I fall asleep on the front step, fully aware that it may warrant my arrest in the morning._

_Instead, I'm awakened by the jingling of keys, and the sound of the aforementioned keys dropping to the floor._

_When she sees me, she does nothing special._

_She says nothing._

_She doesn't open the bookstore._

_She tugs at my jacket._

_She leads me home._

_- - - - - - - - - - - _

_The thought that I have no home does not stop her. She grins like a child, she leads me to a half-empty apartment building that's probably condemned. She takes me up the stairs, because the elevator doesn't work, and she avoids the drunk man on the second floor landing, and the squatters on the fourth floor._

_Her door is open, I won't ask why._

_It's not just her door, I realize. A few people brush past us on their way out._

_She says nothing._

_She does have a room all her own, or so it seems, and it's enough for the moment. She takes off my clothes. She takes off her own._

_I still have gravel on the palm of my hand._

_She refuses to run._

_She is doomed._

_I am doomed._

_We are the subsect._

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

He always imagined what sex with her would have been like.

It was what one might call an obsession.

He had written out drafts of sex scenes for _The Subsect_, but none of them seemed to do her justice. It all seemed cheapened.

Finally, he'd decided to write everything as an impression, a collection of polaroids, hazy and dreamlike, sharp corners with blurred middles.

He imagined that it would be like that, with her. All confusion and hesitation and memory.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She found, hours after starting her review, that what she had written was instead an apology.

Or not exactly an apology, but definitely not a review.

It was a letter.

Once, long ago, her mother had asked her to describe her relationship with Jess.

It was, Lorelai had said, a motherly exercise.

Rory had closed her eyes, tightly, as tight as they would go, and she had found just one way of describing what she and Jess had had.

It had been a relationship of unsent letters.

All the times she started to write to him, when she was in Washington, when he went to New York, when he went to California, when she was on the campaign trail. All the things he had left unsaid. All the things she wished she had said.

It was a relationship of unsent letters.

And this almost-epistolary relationship of theirs had never ended, because they had always longed to say more.

Or at least she had. Still did.

She was afraid, and fear was always the greatest of enemies.

But what she was scared of was harder to pin down.

Was she afraid that he hated her? Or worse yet, was she afraid that he'd forgotten her?

She had always wondered what it would be like to meet again, on a street corner, in a bookstore.

She had wondered if she would stammer. She had wondered if he would stare.

She still remembered his lips on hers, from last time. It was a vague flash of a memory, soon followed by the sinking of her stomach into a bottomless pit. She had told him that she didn't love him.

She had regretted it the second it came out of her mouth.

And she'd never had the courage to show her face in front of him again.

But she owed him this letter, this unsent letter.

She owed him the review she couldn't print, the words she couldn't say.

She folded it three times and sealed it in the envelope.

She owed him a sent letter.

TBC...

Please tell me what you think. Every review helps me fine-tune my writing... Thank you for reading. Di.


	3. Reality

**Author's note: ** I'm going to issue the same apology I left over at The Kid (FYI, new chapter IS up) which is, reality got in the way of fantasy, but I didn't forget these fics and am working on them once more. So, as a show of good faith, I'm giving you the next chapter of my baby.

We are the subsect is a fic that was born out of my curiosity of how Jess would write and how his fictional self would cross with the real Jess (who, in turn, is also a fictional character). Fiction within fiction is one of my favorite topics to broach. I hope you still feel up to exploring this world with me.

I have a few concerns which I will voice at the end. But for now, enjoy reading...

**CHAPTER 3 - Reality**

_She's changed her name since I saw her last. Legally, she says._

_She's picked something biblical, but I won't tell you what._

_We don't talk much._

_I sleep a lot._

_I want to ask about the postcards, but I don't._

_She wants to tell me all her plans, but she doesn't._

_We are dishonest._

_We are bruised._

_We are alive._

_Her mattress and her sheets make me scratch my bare arms. This is the underbelly of Smalltown, USA. _

_Nothing ever smelled this good._

_- - - - - - - - - - - _

An envelope addressed to him arrived at Truncheon at half-past noon on a Friday.

The address and other information had been typed onto the plain brown envelope. He wondered if it was a bill, or a will, or a lawsuit.

He placed it in his back pocket and grabbed his jacket, announcing his intentions to go out to get the paper.

The sun was out, and the salad was suffering because it was not in season. He picked through it. He didn't even bother picking up the paper. Reviews came out Tuesdays, and it was Friday.

The envelope in his back pocket made a swooshing noise as he ordered coffee, a reminder of its presence.

He opened the envelope rather violently, tapping it against the table, then tearing off the opposite end.

He took a sip of his coffee and opened the letter.

The handwriting, so familiar, burned into his fingertips.

Damn, damn, damn.

Damn it.

He couldn't read this letter, her letter, in the corner coffeeshop.

He couldn't.

Slowly, without a sound, he left a twenty on the table and took off.

- - - - - - - - - - -

She'd chewed on her fingernails for almost a week, until there were no more fingernails left to chew.

And now, she didn't quite know what to do with herself.

At the bottom of her letter, she had told him about the reviews, about this… fork in the road.

Had she taken the right path?

She knew it was contrived to think it, but she had taken the road less traveled by.

She had always taken the road of evasion before.

This time…

This time she hadn't.

This time she'd taken a chance.

Where that would lead, no one knew.

She delved into the final chapters of a recently published novel, for this week's column, and tried to shake it all off. She had done what was needed, what had been needed for a long time.

Now it was up to…

Well, it was up to Jess.

- - - - - - --

_I leave the apartment days later._

_The town seems to have changed in my absence. A myriad of seedy characters have found their way onto the streets and no one is as trusting as before._

_Scamming quarters on corners garners me only a couple of nasty looks and a scream. _

_This, too, is my fault._

_I left this town, damaged and bruised._

_I left this town damaged and bruised._

_Everything I touched, I killed._

_On my dashboard, a pebble, a guitar pick._

_A ghost town turned hostile._

_I throw up on a street corner._

- - - - - - - - -

He walked home in a daze.

Home: an apartment with four-walls-worth of books and most of his earthly possessions in diverse piles on the floor.

A table.

White paper.

A pen.

He folded and unfolded the letter fifteen times before reading the first line.

It started, oddly enough, with an apology.

His thumb pressed into the paper with increasing force. If he'd given it any thought, he would have been afraid to tear it.

He took in every letter, every word. Her handwriting was neater, if that was even possible. The ink had pooled at the end of every other word, where he knew she'd paused looking for the next word, and the one after that.

It felt like rubbing salt in a thousand tiny paper cuts.

It felt like being in an airplane, losing cabin pressure, with no oxygen mask in sight.

It felt like he was coming undone.

And maybe dying a little.

He crumpled the letter into a ball, tossed it dismissively into the trash can next to his desk.

Twenty minutes later, he was back, laying the paper flat again, uncrumpled.

He couldn't help himself.

And so he read it all over again.

- - - - - - - - - -

She was sipping her third cup of tea when the phone rang.

Yes. Tea.

Rory Gilmore had not had a cup of coffee since she'd sent the letter.

Punishment, or something like it.

These days, when the phone rang, she jumped.

She let it ring twice.

Her mother.

Rory greeted her kindly, but cut the conversation short.

These days, she didn't really feel like talking about her life, or reminiscing.

These days, she felt as far away from Stars Hollow as from actual stars.

Far far away.

As soon as she hung up another call came in.

For the first time in a week, she picked up the phone calmly.

On the other side of the line, complete, total, utter silence.

Her heart stopped.

"Jess?" she asked, her eyes filling with tears.

A click and a dial tone.

- - - - - - - - -

He heard his name on the other end of the line, and his instinct of self preservation kicked in.

She could hurt him with such ease.

She could flick her wrist and end his life.

He hung up.

He took a deep breath.

He dialed again.

- - - - - - - - -

She was staring at the phone, crying.

She was willing it to ring.

And so it rang.

She picked up the receiver, slowly.

"Sorry," his voice said, at the other end of the line.

"No, don't," she said, and her hand flew up to her mouth. She just couldn't hear him apologize.

"You're here," he stated.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Ballard and 32nd."

"I'm fifteen blocks away," he said, a reproach.

She took a shaky breath. She knew he could tell she'd been crying. "I know."

Silence.

Then he gave her a sign that there was still something of him that she knew. He took a deep breath and said, harshly, "Stay there."

And so she did.

- - - - - - - - - - -

_She doesn't ask me to stay._

_This town makes me sick and she cannot cure me, and these are things I know all too well._

_But if she asked..._

_Maybe._

_I load the car up._

_She gets into the passenger seat._

_I don't move._

_Neither does she._

_We stay like this, at the edge of town, for hours._

_When it gets dark, we are ready._

- - - - - - - - - -

Jess approached her door and knocked apprehensively, like the stranger that he knew he'd become.

Rory opened the door quickly, too quickly. She kicked herself mentally.

No mind.

It became evident at first sight that the years had not been kind to either of them.

In his mind, she was never this thin. And her hair had a lot more red in it. Then again, she wore a braid now. Like a school girl.

She compared him silently to who he'd once been. His hair was longish now, an odd cut that went every which way. His fingernails and his teeth had that slight tinge of regular smokers.

They looked at each other, as far away from perfect as they could be. Memory had covered them in a glow that quickly shattered in the presence of each other. So all they could do was lie.

"You look good," he started.

"So do you," she bullshat.

"No, I don't," he countered.

Honesty.

It was never their strong suit. Maybe now it would be. She tucked a strand of lose hair behind her ear.

"Neither do I."

Each at either side of the doorway, they stood.

"Months you've lived here, fifteen blocks away," Jess said, finally. "Why now?"

"You asked me to let you know what I thought," she replied.

It was the most honest answer she could think of.

Silence.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked, mustering all her courage. She stood aside to let him through.

"No," he answered. But he walked in anyway.

Because it was never so much a want as a need.

Because some things he was compelled to do.

And because she had invited him.

Their relationship had been nothing if not vampiric.

- - - - - - -

He noticed her fingers were tinged in the blue ink she'd used to write him the letter. Her hands shook as she handed him a cup of tea.

He drank the scalding liquid and swore under his breath. She sat on a small couch and brought her knees up to her chest. She looked about six years old.

"I thought you were traveling the world," Jess said.

"Internet," she confessed.

"Luke never said..."

"I asked him not to."

"Oh."

Silence. He sipped his tea.

"I am sorry," she said, sighing deeply.

"What for?" he asked. He wanted to sink his teeth into her intentions, to rip open her lies. He wanted her exposed.

And, as much as he hated admitting it, he wanted her.

"For the last time I saw you. For this." She gestured towards the world with her hands. "For forcing my way into your life again."

"If you're so sorry why did you do it?"

Rory shrugged. "I couldn't help it."

"This is a big city. We could've never run into each other."

Rory nodded. She half-laughed at her own ridiculous behavior. "I have spent a long time hardly ever leaving the house. Afraid I'd run into you. Afraid I'd have to face you."

Jess nodded. He stood up to leave. "Now you can walk around in peace then. The city's yours."

"Jess..."

He turned, furious. "What, Rory? What did you expect me to say?"

Rory shrugged, trying to hold back tears. "I don't know, ok? I just thought I'd tell you what you needed to hear. Or maybe I'd tell you some truth that I'd omitted in the past and I'd be free of you." She let her empty teacup fall to the carpeted floor.

On her feet, Jess found that she seemed even smaller.

"Free of me?" he asked, confused.

"I've spent the past five years of my life with you in my head. Wondering why you left, why you came back, why you kept popping in and out of my life, why I didn't run after you. And the last chance I had to make good with you, the last chance we both had to tell the truth, you were wide open and I just shielded myself, lied to both you and myself."

"Lied?"

"Lied."

Jess shook his head. "Lied about what, Rory?"

"I didn't love Logan. I was in love with him."

"How's that different?" Jess asked. Then he thought again, "You know what? Never mind. Why should I care?"

"You shouldn't. You have a life, you moved on."

"Damn right I did," he said, taking his jacket off the chair and shoving one arm into the sleeve. "Humor me, though. Enlighten me, Rory. What's the difference?"

"Being in love is like being blind. Loving someone is like your eyes are being held open all the time, until you cannot blink anymore. It's Clockwork-Orange-ey and it hurts."

"Logan hurt you if I remember correctly," Jess pointed out, settling down a bit.

"But in the end, when all was said and done, I had no trouble letting go of him. And once he was gone, neither of us ever looked back. But I can't help looking back at who you and I once were. "

Jess ran his fingers through his hair. "What do you want from me Rory? Forgiveness? You got it. Wish granted. You're free." He spoke staring at the floor. It took him several minutes to notice that Rory was sitting down again, sobbing softly.

"I just want someone real in my life again. Someone I can talk to," she said, sadly, defeated.

Jess shook his head and opened the door to leave. "I don't think I can be that someone, Ror."

And, without a goodbye, he walked out the door.

TBC...

_Author's note Numero Dos: _ I'm afraid I might have jumped the gun and that the meeting is much too early. But then again, I figured, after the letter came, what else could happen? Please tell me what you think. Thanks as always for reading and sticking through this even during the loooong hiatus.

di


	4. Wreckage

_**CHAPTER 4: Wreckage**_

Rory had suspected that this would hurt, but she never thought it would hurt so much.

She curled up into a ball on her couch and cried, uncontrollably. She tried to stifle the tears, but they just kept on coming. She took shallow breaths between sobs, but couldn't stop.

She'd said too much, too soon, she'd said it all, and he'd walked out the door.

He'd turned to tables. They were back in her dorm room, he was laying his heart on a slab of cement, and she was stabbing at it with the word 'no'.

She couldn't sit, she couldn't stand.

Every ounce of her hurt.

Was this letting go?

- - - - - - -

Jess closed the door, took two steps and felt a wave of dizziness hit him. He sat down on her doorstep and tried to take deep breaths. Was this what a heart attack felt like? What heartbreak felt like?

He could hear her sobs through the door, or maybe he couldn't really hear them but he could imagine them with unbearable accuracy. He'd never been good at dealing with her tears.

He'd hurt her once, when younger, when he'd left her behind, and it had taken him years to convince himself that he wasn't a bastard, that he wasn't unworthy, just because of that one mistake.

And her smile, that one time when he'd visited her at her grandmother's house - that surprised, forgiving smile that lit up the moment she saw him - had almost made him believe he was human again, that he could be forgiven.

But now, sitting here, he felt the same way he'd felt back then. A monster. A traitor.

She had given him a chance.

He had shown her what his back looked like when he left.

With shaking hands and unsteady knees, he stood back up.

There was only one logical thing to do.

He had to be a man.

He had to climb in through her window.

- - - - - - - - -

He found her asleep on the couch, tears still wet on her cheeks, her eyes swollen, her skin red. How much time had passed since he slammed the door? Hadn't it been just a minute? The sky outside told of hours gone by.

He was close enough to touch her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

She had been his inspiration once. And he had inspired her to find herself once as well.

He tried to remember those few moments when they had been good to each other, good for each other.

He brushed a dull strand of hair out of her eyes and she opened her eyes slowly.

Her tears flowed unchecked. "You came back," she said, disbelief in her voice.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. "No, don't apologize, please, just... don't. I'll be fine, you should go. Things always hurt, but people heal, right? You should go."

"You need a friend," he interrupted, stating the obvious. Her house was uninhabited, everything remained in boxes, comfortably out of the way, shoved against walls. She hadn't lived in Philadelphia yet; she just breathed its air and used its public transportation system.

She sniffled. "I need a friend."

He tried to smile. "I need an editor," he replied. "And I need to learn how not to hold a grudge."

Rory attempted a smile as well. "I could learn a little about that myself." She sniffled again. "Also, I haven't seen the Liberty Bell."

"Please tell me you ran up the steps like Rocky already?" Jess asked, sitting on the floor beside the couch where Rory remained, curled up, sleepy.

Rory shook her head. "Nope."

"Your mother must be very upset."

"I lied, told her I'd done it."

It was amazing how they'd slipped back into the comfort of friendship. No magic wand of forgiveness had been waved and they could both feel the weight of things unspoken hanging between them, waiting for the right time to leave their mouths. But at this precise moment, he could transport this conversation to Luke's apartment, after a school day, sipping on a Dr. Pepper between kisses and words.

"She didn't ask for pictures?" Jess asked, incredulous.

Rory shrugged. "I sent her a file attachment she couldn't open. My mother and computers don't get along too well."

Jess laughed. "I'll take you there next week."

Rory narrowed her puffy eyes. "What's the catch?"

"Review _The Subsect_. You know, really review it, only for me to read. Write on the margins of a copy. Dissect it."

Rory nodded. "No admissions of guilt this time?"

"Please, no."

"Ok."

"Ok."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

_This girl and I, we pick the roads by rolling dice, by tossing a guitar pick in the air and calling heads or tails._

_This girl and I end up in eskimo country. She tells me the proper name is Inuit._

_I ask her about postcards and she just smiles knowingly._

_This girl and I, we drive to beaches frozen._

_This girl and I, we know each other's names. It seems to be enough. _

_This girl and I, we drive through snow and deserts and plains and mountain ranges. We visit historical sites of battles, crashes, destruction and death. She likes tragedies, body counts. They seem to soothe her._

_We visit cemeteries, she touches headstones._

_She's the kind of girl who can always spot the dead tree in the middle of a pine forest._

_That's how she spotted me._

- - - - - - -

This was how it went. Rory scribbled on a paperback, Jess circled spots on a map.

Rory boiled water for tea, Jess made scrambled eggs.

Rory nodded off somewhere after midnight, on page 76. Jess covered her with a blanket.

He had to recognize it, his anger dissipated quickly when she was nearby.

She had all kinds of effects on him.

He wanted to smother her, to murder her in her sleep. He wanted her to disappear.

He also wanted to kiss her, but that was inconsequential at the moment.

His life was always more interesting with her around.

The knowledge that that she needed him gave him a renewed sense of purpose.

She had never needed him before.

She had liked him, wanted him, loved him. She had wanted to see him, she had missed him, she had hated him.

But now it was different.

For once, they were equals. For once, they both needed.

He watched her sleep.

It was the first time he'd ever gotten the chance to watch her sleep.

It was true that the years had not been kind to her. It was also true that, right this second, watching her sleep, he was falling in love with the soft wrinkles forming around her mouth, with the wisps of brittle hair, with her chewed fingernails.

He caught himself. _Jess Mariano, the fool_, he thought. She hadn't sought him out for this. He hadn't called her for this.

He still wasn't entirely sure why they had reestablished contact, but he understood now, there was a pull that surpassed him, surpassed both of them.

Friends. He could do that. He could be her friend.

With that in mind, he drifted off to sleep.

- - - - - - - -

_It's a freezing winter day when we find our way to Dave again. He's disappearing, all smiles and nervous hands. His fingertips are singed, but his hands haven't touched a guitar in months._

_He's forgotten how to make music._

_He hits us up for a quarter, a dime. _

_He's sick, he says, and I know it's not a con._

_He's trying to kick a bad habit, he says, and she knows it's a lie._

_We offer him a ride to wherever._

_He picks a spot on the map that I'm not willing to go back to._

_But a promise is a promise._

_Dave wants to go home._

_To his home, to my home._

_And so that's where we go._

_We don't even take the scenic route._

- - - - - - - - -

Rory woke up, a pen in hand, a blanket covering her.

She felt as if she'd just left the house leaving the iron on and the doors unlocked.

She felt as if she'd just slept next to a stranger. And in a sense, she had.

Jess slept fitfully. He'd never been a deep sleeper. She'd gone upstairs to Luke's apartment once or twice during their brief relationship, when Luke would claim he was sleeping. It didn't matter how quietly she opened the door, he would bolt upright. Some instinct of self preservation.

She'd never really seen him sleep before.

She felt something akin to fear at the pit of her stomach. What if she couldn't be what he remembered, who he remembered? Maybe she could never be the girl he had once respected. There were days she wasn't sure she could be that girl for herself.

She shook off the sleep from her eyelids, and blanketed herself in the warmth that Jess had surrounded her with.

She took deep breaths.

She had made many mistakes, unforgivable mistakes.

Yet here he was. And here she was.

Maybe there was hope for them yet.

She would give him what she could. Words circled in pink, underlined, liner notes, lyrics of songs that he reminded her of. He'd written The Subsect for them, about them. And although she had once told him what she thought, now she could show him.

She scribbled furiously on the margins of the novel as the sun started creeping back up.

- - - - - - - - -

He woke to the sound of a cup crashing on the tile floor. He was up on his feet before Rory could take a step.

"You barefoot?" he asked.

Rory nodded, biting her lower lip nervously, a child.

"Don't move, ok?" he demanded. "Those hard-to-break ceramics are the worst. They may not break often but when they do they shatter into a thousand little pieces."

"Sharp little fucking shards," Rory replied, trying to stand perfectly still.

"You've been reading my book too much," Jess murmured. "Where's your broom?"

Rory shrugged. "Behind the kitchen door, I think."

Jess nodded. His sneakers crunched the ceramic against the tile, a million tiny scratches coming to life beneath the soles of his shoes. He took the broom and swept around her, away from her feet.

"They say if someone sweeps your feet you'll marry an old man," Jess said.

Rory shrugged. "By all means, sweep away. Not the worst thing that could happen."

Jess smiled. "Better than marrying a rich man, I guess."

"Wouldn't know," Rory replied.

"So you and the blonde dick..." Jess ventured.

Rory shrugged again. "He proposed, in the middle of a party my grandparents held for me. Big, down-on-one-knee-with-a-huge-diamond-kind-of-proposal. The second the words came out of his mouth I knew he had no clue who I was."

"Yeah, I never pegged you for a public proposal kind of girl," Jess said, before he could catch himself.

"What did you peg me for?" Rory asked, curiosity etched in the way she arched her eyebrows.

"That's not what I meant," Jess started, but she waved away his words.

"Humor me."

"Honestly?"

Rory nodded.

"I never thought you'd be into the idea of a traditional wedding. Didn't see a church, didn't see an aisle, didn't see a flower girl, didn't see any bridesmaids," Jess rattled off.

"Huh," Rory said. "Did you see the groom?"

"Could only see his floppy hair," Jess quipped.

"Ah, you see, the thing is, had it been Dean, it would've been the whole nine yards. Layer cake and all," Rory pointed out, as if it were a triumph.

"I was joking about the floppy hair," Jess said.

Rory nodded. "So was I."

Jess looked away and kept on sweeping. Rory watched blood slowly bloom from the tiniest cut just to the side of her ankle.

- - - - - - - - - -

_The road in front of us shrinks. Eight lanes become six, six lanes become four, and sooner or later it will all be reduced to dirt and dust and cornfields._

_She will look at me with absolute certainty that I have lied._

_She believes me to be a different man from a different place._

_She believes me to be different._

_As we approach the town Dave softly calls home, she will see._

_The place I come from is as small as I am._

_The expression in her face, it won't be disappointment._

_It won't be anything._

_I drive._

_Four lanes become two._

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Jess paced the living room while Rory showered.

Why had he stayed?

He hadn't shaved and he could feel the two-day's growth, scratchy and uncomfortable. And he could hear the shower, and all he could think about was water on skin.

He tried to think back at what his teenage self would have done.

He closed his eyes and listened to the pounding water.

His teenage self would have let himself into the bathroom, if only to be closer to her. If only to make her jump.

Jess shook his head, tried to clear it. She had no right to come back into his life, yet she did.

He had no right to think what he was thinking, yet he did.

He tore himself away from the spot where he was standing and headed back to the kitchen. At least there he could do something.

He rifled through the cabinets and finally found it. Rory had once called it the comfort food of all comfort foods. A box of Pop-Tarts.

Though he hated them, always had, he popped two tarts in and plugged the toaster.

He silently watched the coils of the toaster burn red hot.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Rory watched the thinnest trickle of blood, washed away.

She couldn't tell if he was still outside. She couldn't hear anything but the water against the shower walls.

The steam was comforting. So was the running water.

They hid the fact that she was crying so well, she almost believed it herself, that she wasn't crying.

She had left the bathroom door unlocked.

She never, ever, left the bathroom door unlocked. Not even when she was by herself, not even when she'd lived at home.

Was she extending him an invitation, wordless, unwitting?

Was she expecting something to happen?

She knew she had no right to expect anything.

Still...

She shook her head, letting the water roll off her, and sobbed quietly for all the time she'd lost.

- - - - - - - - - -

Wrapped in a towel, she stepped out of the bathroom. The band-aid on her foot wasn't necessary anymore, but she wore it out of an odd need to be healed.

Maybe if she looked the part, she could act the part.

She made her way quietly to her bedroom, dressed quietly as well.

When she stepped out into the living room, she spotted the Pop-Tarts on the coffee table. "You made these?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at Jess.

Jess readjusted his position on the couch and nodded.

"You hate these," she reminded him.

He ignored the comment and waited for her to sit down. "Your foot?" he asked.

"Better."

The silence grew to a point where Rory needed to break it. She grabbed a Pop-Tart and munched on it, loudly.

The noise filled the room eerily.

Jess watched her eat with fascination. With her hair wet and a Pop-Tart in her hand, he could almost see her, sixteen again, in Stars Hollow, innocence still sparkling in her eyes.

"Did you finish?" he asked, gesturing towards the wrinkled copy of The Subsect.

Rory shook her head. "Not yet," she answered, covering her mouth with her hand, so he wouldn't see the food.

"I should go. Chris and Matt are gonna start to wonder, and then they're gonna start making up stories," Jess said, trying to gauge Rory's reaction to his words.

With blank eyes, she nodded slowly. "I should show up at work, too. Sooner or later."

Jess tried to picture her at a desk, writing. It was almost as hard as picturing himself at a desk, writing.

He hadn't put pen to paper successfully in such a long time.

He gave a quick nod, a sort of goodbye, and headed to the door, but her voice stopped him.

"I... I'd like to go to Truncheon again. See what it's become," she said, nervous.

He took a shallow, shaky breath. Where had his anger, his bravado, his balls all gone? "Tomorrow?"

"Whenever you want. I mean..."

"Tomorrow's good," he said, cutting her off.

She nodded. "Tomorrow then."

"It's exactly where you last left it," he added.

And then he walked out her door.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_And two lanes become one._

_Dirt and dust and cornflowers._

**TBC...**

**Author's note: I'm sorry I'm not updating as often as I used to, but I'm still sticking to it. I'd love for you guys to tell me what you think about it, how it feels, how the parts of the book work. It helps me a lot to know how the story flows, as it has original characters/plotlines that are non-canon. Thanks for all the reviews so far, and please, tell me what you think!**


	5. Regardless

Author's note: First, I just wanted to apologize for such a delayed update. I kind-of lost my way here and I had to erase and re-write. I think I finally know where it's going, which is sort of scary. I want to thank everyone sticking by this one and tell you all that I appreciate the reviews and even the act of placing me on your story-alert list gives me a nice bump to keep on writing. As always, I ask that you please let me know what you think. This is, I have to admit, my favorite story, my baby, and as such, it's harder to put it out there. Anything you may have to say (be it encouragement, critique, wild guesses or flames) will be much welcome. Now that the violins stopped playing, I give you....

**We are the subsect**

_**CHAPTER 5**_

_**Regardless**_

There was a girl in Jess Mariano's room.

Chris and Matt had a feel for such things, and they knew as soon as Jess walked in with a blonde in tow that something was wrong, that there was trouble.

It had been months since Jess had last had any girl over. Year's since one-night-stand material had walked through his door.

The sounds of fucking could be heard through the walls. Blonde-chick's voice.

That was part of what was wrong. Jess was usually private. He didn't pick loud girls. He always picked blondes, but quiet ones.

This was not private.

Even if Jess was never actually heard through the wall.

The blonde left two hours later, disappointed by Jess's growling. Even more disappointed by the fact that he didn't want her there to begin with.

Jess followed the romp with a two-hour shower.

Not that either one of them would say anything, but Matt and Chris knew.

Trouble was in the air.

When he finally got out of the shower, dressed and sullen, Matt pushed a cup of coffee towards him. Chris slid a pack of cigarettes over to him.

Two cups of coffee and half a pack later, Jess finally spoke, leaning into the counter.

Simple words.

"Rory's in town."

It was as they had predicted. Trouble.

- - - - - - - - -

"Mom?" Rory said, shakily.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Lorelai asked. She could recognize Rory's panic voice over the phone lines, across states. In a way, she felt relieved. She'd heard a Rory so cold the past few months, she was beginning to think she'd been taken by the _Body Snatchers. _

"I'm... Jess..." Rory attempted.

"Did you see him?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Rory took a deep breath before bursting into tears. "I don't know."

- - - - - - - - - -

_Signposts and painted lines on the road, they all speed past us._

_We get closer to home, closer by the minute._

_When they say there's no place like home, it doesn't have to be a bad thing._

_  
When they say you can never go home again, it doesn't have to be negative._

_But we ride, we return, we are going back._

_And I fear the place more than I fear the word itself. And she can smell the fear on me._

_Home: it always smells like murder._

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Truncheon looked empty when Rory approached. No bustling open house, no bad poetry being screamed over the microphone. She was, in a sense, grateful.

But the second she stepped out of the rain and entered Truncheon, she decided she liked it better full of people.

This way, empty and with just a few customers browsing through the books, Rory could feel Matt's eyes on the back of her neck as she closed her umbrella.

Chris looked at her with a mixture of contempt and pity.

She wasn't entirely sure which was worse.

Jess greeted her with a sullen nod. He walked the two steps it took to get to her and she sensed it instantly. A hostility she hadn't known in years.

"I shouldn't have-" she said, before darting out of the bookstore.

- - - - - - - - - -

By the time Jess reached her, she was already soaking wet. She had learned little about Philadelphia in the time she'd lived there. Rain was one of the things she hadn't learned about.

She had dropped her umbrella somewhere in mid-run and now she stood at the bus-stop, freezing and dripping.

"Rory..."

"I get it, Jess. I didn't need to have it spelled out in withering stares," Rory answered, sticking her arm out. The cabbie avoided her.

"Matt and Chris can be..."

"I said I get it. I know when I'm in the way. I'll get a cab and I'll go home and -"

"No, you don't get it, Rory. The cabs won't stop because it's raining and you're soaked. And the rain won't stop until tomorrow morning."

"Fucking Philly," she muttered.

Jess wanted to smile but held his countenance. "You'll learn."

"I'll just wait for a bus, then."

"You have to cross the street," Jess pointed out. "The buses here go uptown."

"You have any great suggestions?"

"I can drive you."

- - - - - - - - -

Rory rode silently in the passenger's seat, fully aware of every drop of water that dripped off her and onto the floor of his car.

The roof leaked, so that was some consolation.

"I'm sorry. About Matt and Chris. They're just-"

"Bulldogs?" Rory asked.

Jess shrugged. "Overprotective."

"I get it," she said, almost a whisper.

Jess felt his temper flare up and he didn't have the energy to push it back down. "Stop saying you get it, because you don't. You don't get this city and you don't get me. You say you know when you're not welcome, but... Do you know why Matt and Chris got like that? It's because of you. I told them you were here, but they already knew something was wrong. I had a one-night stand with some random girl last night, Rory. The last time I had a one-night stand was three years ago. The night you revenge-kissed me."

Rory's eyes widened in anger. "Well, I'm so sorry I push you into having meaningless sex with a stranger. I'm really fucking sorry I ruined your evening."

"You don't... I was fine before you came along."

"Stop the car," Rory said.

"What?"

"Stop the damn car."

"We're five miles from your apartment and it's pouring out."

"Let me out of the car, Jess. So you were better off without me? So much better that you started correspondence with a book reviewer in hopes of validation? Who are you kidding?" Rory grabbed the steering wheel and veered it right. "Pull over."

A car honked loud and long as it sped past, barely missing them. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Maybe. I have to be out of my mind, right? Asking you to be friends with me." Rory shook her head in annoyance. "But I can't be your buddy, I can't hear about one-night stands and how I hurt you until you bled. I'm too fucked up to deal with it, Jess. I can't. So just pull over."

"I'm not asking you to fucking deal with anything. You just don't get a word I'm saying, do you? I did what I did last night because I'm fucking scared of you. You always leave me drained, Rory. And you do leave."

"You leave, too."

"Not anymore, Rory," Jess said, pulling over. "Don't get out of the car."

"You stopped," Rory said, confused.

Jess nodded. "Don't get out."

Rory sat, arms crossed, staring at the windshield wipers go back and forth. Back and forth. "Why?"

"Because it's raining just as hard out there."

For fifteen minutes, she stared at the windshield wipers squeeze the water off the glass, leaving a clear path for drops to crash back on the surface.

Jess started the car again.

- - - - - - - - -

He offered to walk out to the door with her, but she didn't want him to.

Or else she did, but for all the wrong reasons.

Jess watched her gather her wet purse, her dripping sweater, and he reached across to unlock the door for her.

She turned to open the door, but paused and faced him instead. "If it makes you feel any better, which it probably doesn't - and you probably don't care about this... you shouldn't, why should you? Anyway, in the whole brutally honest spirit of sharing, if it's worth anything, I haven't been with anyone... had sex since I moved to Philadelphia."

And with that, she threw open the door and disappeared under a curtain of rain.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

_Dave coughs every hour on the hour, a dry, dead cough that tells the time as we rush by the cornfields._

_If she were to ask me, I'd tell her it's this place we're going to, I'd tell her that is what's killing him._

_It would be a lie._

_It's one of Dave's quirks, his body is a human clock, we can tell the time by his coughs. It's a human compass, his shivers telling us we're going in the right direction._

_He's decaying, decomposing._

_He's dying._

_And here we are, in a car, driving him to his grave. Not because the place is killing him, but because he wants to die there._

_A promise is a promise._

_A home is a grave._

_We are the subsect._

- - - - - - - - - - - -

He'd sat still, watching Rory's apartment for hours before finding the energy to move.

He finally started the car back up and drove home under the incessant pelting.

Truncheon was closed early, and the lights in the apartment told Jess that Matt and Chris were having a conference about him.

If the weather hadn't been so miserable, he might have gone a couple more rounds around the block so they could finish, but he was cold and wet and at least as miserable as the damn weather, so they would have to talk about him with him present.

He walked up the stairs and kicked off his shoes before pushing the door open, his actions purposely loud to warn Matt and Chris of his presence.

Matt and Chris knew no such thing as subtlety, so instead of quickly changing the subject, they remained silent, looking at Jess as he crossed the living room without a word and walked into his room. With the door open, Jess changed out of his dripping clothes into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt before joining them in the kitchen.

"Hey," he said, and they took it for what it was. Permission to speak freely.

Matt handed Jess a cereal box and the milk, Chris placed a bowl and a spoon in front of him. Their version of the _we're here for you _speech.

"She living here?" Matt asked. Chris elbowed him in the ribs. Matt glared.

"Yup," Jess said, pouring milk on his cereal, refusing to look at them.

"And she came to see you..."

"Not exactly." My, how interesting his cereal seemed.

"She came here, today, to see you," Matt insisted.

"You were there," Jess replied, noncommittal.

"So?" Chris asked this time, curiosity getting the better of him.

"So she's here," Jess answered. "Don't ask me what that means, because I don't know."

"Did you... you know..." Matt started.

"No, of course not," Jess said angrily.

Matt raised his arms in the air. "Had to ask."

"No, you didn't," Jess countered.

"Do you want some advice?" Chris asked.

"No, I don't," Jess answered.

"She broke you before, Mariano. As your editor, I have to admit you've never been more productive than the three days after she kissed you. As your friend, I'd have to say I've never seen a more pathetic excuse for a man than you were those three days," Chris said anyway.

Matt concurred. "As your publisher, I'm also obligated to add that your work since that night has been crap and that you never finished what you wrote those three days. Don't know how that affects the balance, though."

Jess let the spoon slip from his fingers, the tip disappearing farther into the depths of milk and Cheerios. "Fine, comments from the peanut gallery duly noted. Now I'm going to have to ask you both to butt out as my friends and as my editor and publisher." He took a deep breath, his hands gripping the counter nervously. "I need to figure this out for myself, ok?"

"We're just trying to-"

"Don't, Matt. Don't try to help me, or help her, don't go Parent Trap on us, don't expect anything. I never ask you for anything, guys, but I'm asking now. Stay out of it until further notice."

And without another word or glance, he stalked off to his room and shut the door.

- - - - - - - - - -

Jess, of course, had them dead-on. Matt and Chris were already halfway through debating Parent-Trap-style schemes the second Jess walked through the front door.

But it was the clicking of keyboard strokes filtering through the closed door of Jess's room that sealed the deal.

Jess Mariano was typing.

Jess Mariano was writing.

Matt and Chris exchanged knowing glances.

- - - - - - - -

Rory kept her eyes trained on the telephone. Three hours since Jess had dropped her off, two hours since she'd gotten out of the bathtub, one hour since she'd started to look at the damned thing.

She didn't expect it to ring. She expected nothing less of Jess but the complete transfer of his assets to an offshore account and for him to haul ass out of Pennsylvania.

But she hoped.

It was different, to hope and to expect.

Still, she kept her eyes on the phone.

- - - - - - - - -

_There is a sign at the exact spot where every town starts._

_It is a cheerful sign, a sign that says "This is a new place"._

_It is a sign that says, "We're glad to see you."_

_It is a sign that reads, "Welcome to -"_

_Our town has one, too._

_It's rusted, and outdated, and it sits in the center of town, because the small town grew once, in ways no one ever expected it too, leaving the sign to welcome those who were already there._

_The people that made the town grow were the people that left it to die, long ago, left the empty houses and overgrown lawns and dried fruit trees in their wake. The town gave and gave until it could give no more._

_She smiles and points when she sees the sign. _

_She feels welcome. _

_Dave coughs and shivers and keeps right on sleeping._

_Me?_

_I drive through the dead streets, the empty corners, the rusted trailers._

_I drive by the closed factories, the broken store windows, the Oldsmobiles._

_I drive over a dead rat that's already been flattened by a tractor._

_I drive under the swarm of dragonflies that whisper of the rain that is to come._

_I drive home._

_I try not to show it._

_I try not to die._

_Welcome home._

- - - - - - - - -

By midnight she had already reached the final third of _The Subsect_. Her notes bordered on psychotic, and even though she was trying not to, at times she reproached him, at times she was confessional. Every other page, she cried, and a tear had already smudged some writing.

It was impossible for her to separate Jess from the book's Joshua, the troubled man from the troubled boy, the what-could-have-been with the what-is.

She knew the end of the book was near and she couldn't deal with it in this closed city, this empty place where she knew no one, smelled nothing familiar. Jess was right, she didn't know this city and it sure as hell didn't seem to like her.

If she was to keep his promise, keep good on her word of reviewing _The Subsect_ the whole way through, she would need one thing.

She picked up the phone that did not ring, no matter how hard she hoped, and dialed the number she could never forget, no matter how far away she was.

"Mom?" she said into the receiver.

A call to a cab, an e-mail to her boss, a message on her answering machine.

And she was gone.

_Welcome home._

TBC...

so... tell me what you thought! Thanks for stopping by...


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